


Night Watches

by Braincoins



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: (because "hurt/comfort" doesn't quite feel right), Angst/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Shallura Secret Santa 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-26 21:05:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17149064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Braincoins/pseuds/Braincoins
Summary: Allura has a troubled past and a dark outlook on their present. It takes Shiro to brighten up her future.





	Night Watches

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chai_and_coffee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chai_and_coffee/gifts).



> Merry Christmas to chai-and-coffee! I was your Secret Santa for 2018! I hope you enjoy this! ^_^  
> ======

            Allura rose in the middle of the night, grabbing her robe and stealing out of her room to the observation deck. She let deep space surround her and fill her with that unworldly cold. The void outside the Castle of Lions tempted her thoughts down a dark path, made her feel every single ounce of the weight of her self-appointed task, showed her how long the road was to victory, how small and powerless she was in the face of the deep.

            She liked to think she was following destiny. Perhaps walking in these shoes wouldn’t lead to victory; perhaps she was destined to fail. Still, it was destiny, it was fate, she could never have done anything else. Because if this was destiny, it wasn’t the rash lashing out of an irrational child. It wasn’t a choice made out of anger and sorrow. And wh-… _if_ it failed, it wasn’t her fault.

            And when it was too much to bear, she went back to her room, curled up tight ‘neath her covers, and tried to remember what warmth was like.

 

            She shouldn’t go. But it was almost a compulsion now, a terrible addiction, akin to self-flagellation in the face of oblivion and the sheer impossibility of overthrowing a nigh-immortal tyrant who had ruled for millennia.

            She would go and face her unworthiness, soak it in and accept it, then go back to bed and, in the morning, she would rise to the day’s tasks as if she were unaware of the inevitability of her failure.

            She rose and grabbed her robe, stealing out of her room to the observation deck.

            But when the doors hissed open, there was not just the blank uncaring deep: there was Shiro, turning to face her in surprise and his Castle-issued pajamas. (Well, the pants anyway; he was wearing a loose tank top with them.) “Princess, uh… hello.”

            “Oh, I’m sorry to disturb you,” she said politely.

            “If you want me to leave, I can give you the room. I wasn’t doing anything important.”

            “What _were_ you doing?” she wanted to know.

            “Just… thinking.” He turned back to the darkness beyond the safe confines of the Castle. “Sometimes what we’re doing… weighs on me.”

            “As it does on me,” she agreed.

            He turned back to her in surprise. “Really? I mean, I suppose I shouldn’t be that surprised, but you’ve never shown it. Not one iota.”

            She smiled. “I was trained not to. As a princess.”

            “Ah, of course. I forget your training sometimes; it seems so… effortlessly you.”

            She barked a laugh. “I assure you there’s nothing effortless about it.”

            “You just make it seem that way.”

            “Oh, stop.” She went to take a seat on one of the couches along the wall.

            He followed her. “It’s true.”

            “You are the natural-born leader. And your being Black Paladin only proves it.”

            “Thank you, but it’s not any easier for me than it is for you. It’s just… well, it’s training.”

            “Drilled into you until it becomes second nature?” she asked.

            He nodded. “Like a uniform you pull on…”

            “…but can never quite take off again.”

            They talked about leadership and she forgot about deep space lurking outside. When she realized how far into the night cycle they were, he apologized and bid her good night. But they wound up walking together for a good way – all the sleeping quarters were in the same direction from the obs deck, after all. He laughed in embarrassment and bid her _another_ good night when it was time for him to duck down the hallway to his bunk.

            She went to her bed, snuggled in, and fell asleep.

 

            She went back to the obs deck the next night and the one after. But, this time, finding the room empty, she frowned in disappointment and went back to her room. It wasn’t until the third empty night that she returned to her melancholia, that the frozen tendrils latched onto her again.

 

            A movement later, she ran straight into Shiro on her way to there. “Oh, sorry!” She backed up hastily.

            “No, it’s my fault,” he said immediately, gallant as always.

            “I walked into you!” She couldn’t help staring at the chest she’d just smooshed her face into and blushed. “It can’t be your fault.”

            “Are you going to the obs deck?”

            She nodded. “You as well?”

            “Yeah.”

            “Would you rather be alone?” she asked.

            He considered it, then shook his head. “Not if my alternative is talking with you some more.” He crooked his arm out.

            She laughed and accepted it. “Such a gentleman, Shiro.”

            “Training,” he said, and she laughed again. When she looked at his face, he was beaming boyishly, the way he did during paladin food fights.

            “Your Galaxy Garrison is very thorough in its training.”

            “Not thorough enough for you, as I seem to recall.” He raised his tone (though not his volume), took on a strange accent. “‘That training simulator was set at a level fit for an Altean child!’”

            She realized what he was doing. “I did say that, didn’t I? I was too harsh on you at the beginning.”

            “No, it’s understandable. We have a hell of a task ahead of us.”

            “Hell?”

            They walked onto the obs deck as he explained that to her. She said it sounded similar to an old belief of the Plain of Lost Souls, never to be reunited, doomed to wander eternity without rest or comfort.

            “It sounds like a horrible place,” he said.

            “Sometimes I think we’re already there,” she said without thinking, eyes drinking in the blackness.

            “What makes you say that?”

            “Nothing,” she said hastily. “Forget I mentioned it.”

            “Princess, are you… okay?”

            “I’m fine. No need to fuss.”

            “I’m not fussing. I’m just asking. Does anyone – other than Coran – ever ask you how you are?”

            “It’s… been a while,” she admitted.

            “Well, I’m asking. I hope you know you can be honest with me.”

            “I know.”

            He disengaged from her, but only so he could sit and pat the cushion next to him.

            She relented and sat. “As you said, we have ‘a hell of a task.’ And I fear I have set us upon a path that will lead us only to our deaths, with no good done to show for it.”

            He was quiet a long moment. “That may be,” he said carefully, “but there is no other path that would have felt right to me. To any of us.”

            “It’s kind of you to say.”

            “It’s the truth. We’re here to fight for the universe,” he laid a hand on hers, “with you. And whatever happens, you won’t face it alone.”

            She smiled, feeling tears prick her eyes. Then she changed the subject back to Garrison training. It didn’t take long for him to challenge her to a spar, and she grinned wickedly as she took him up on it. And even in her nightgown, she pinned him to the floor three times in quick succession. And still he got back up and asked to do it all again.

            The fourth time, he pinned her. Briefly. She was stronger than he was, and throwing him off to pin him and triumph yet again was easy enough. “You’re getting the hang of it,” she said approvingly.

            “Practice makes perfect.”

            She got off him and offered her hand to her defeated foe. She pulled him back up to his feet. “Perhaps we should arrange a proper spar sometime? In the training room?”

            “I’d like that. Also you and me versus some training drones. I’d love to get a better idea of how to fight alongside you.”

            “Oooh, that is a very good idea!”

            He blinked and cocked his head.

            “What?” she asked.

            “Nothing, just… it’s nice to see you smile like that.”

            She blushed faintly. “Well. It’s your fault.”

            “I’m happy to take the blame for that.”

            She changed the subject again, but his comment about her smile was never far from her mind. And, once again, they stayed up too late talking, and, once again, she fell asleep without problem. She even felt a little warm, for a change, drifting off with Shiro’s voice in her ears.

            “You seem to come here every movement or so,” she said the next time it happened.

            “Oh, do I? I hadn’t realized it was that regular.”

            “What? What’s regular?”

            He cleared his throat. “You don’t want to hear about it.”

            “No, I do. If you want to talk about it, anyway.” She laid her hand on his shoulder. “I want to help, Shiro.”

            He smiled. Was it her imagination or had his cheeks turned a soft pink color? “You do nothing but help, and you have enough to worry about without my adding to it.”

            “I’d welcome something more concrete to worry about than just…” She swept her hand over the endless vast darkness outside, then looked back to him. “I might actually be able to _help_ you.”

            “You help all of us, and I’m… not sure you can help with this anyway.” He cleared his throat. “I just have bad dreams, that’s all.”

            “Every movement?”

            He glanced away. “Almost every night. But sometimes they’re worse than others. Sometimes they wake me up and I can’t go back to sleep. That’s when I come here.”

            “Oh, Shiro. I wish I’d known sooner.”

            He smiled thinly at her. “Thank you, but there’s nothing you c-…”

            “There _is_ something I can do. Lay down.”

            “Here?”

            She nodded and patted her lap. “Put your head here and stretch out along the couch.”

            His cheeks were definitely pink now. “I-if you insist.”

            “I do.” She smiled as he moved to obey her. And when he was laying face up, head pillowed on her lap, she laid her hands either side of his temple, pressing her first two fingers against them and rubbing in slow, soothing circles. “Close your eyes,” she bid him, and he did as told. “Ever the obedient paladin.” That won a chuckle from him.

            She kept rubbing his temples and started humming her favorite lullaby. And that, aside from the faint hum of the Castle’s engines and the sound of their own breathing, was all the noise there was. She kept up the temple massage and the humming until it was quite clear that Shiro’d fallen asleep on her. She pulled her hands away cautiously but kept up the melody.

            Brazenly, she combed her fingers through the white tuft that was always falling in his face. She played with it softly as she hummed, and then ran her hands through the rest of his hair, fingertips stroking his scalp. She did as she wanted with his hair and he slept through it all. She closed her eyes and stilled her hands. The melody fell away.

            Coran was indignant the next morning at finding her asleep in the obs deck and chewed her out about getting proper rest in her own bed. But from what he said, he’d only caught _her_ there, not Shiro. And she noticed a blanket had been laid over her at some point. She smiled, despite Coran’s lecture.

 

            She no longer went to the obs deck except to see if Shiro were there. If not, she went back to her room and read until she could fall asleep. And when he was…

            Sometimes they sparred, or she lulled him to sleep, but mostly they talked. He told her of his favorite things to do on Earth and old stories of Keith when he was growing up. She told him what she missed most of Altea (besides her father), and how she used to prank Coran when she was a child.

            One night he asked her the question she would have been dreading if she’d even thought of it. “So what brings you here then? Hopefully not nightmares like mine.”

            She frowned. “No. I… I used to come here to face reality.”

            “What do you mean?”

            She rose and walked towards the panels showing what surrounded the ship. “This nothingness. This vast… apathy. I came here to remind myself that I’ve set us upon an impossible task, and that we may very well fail. I came here to make myself face that.” She looked back to him. “You put so much trust and faith in me, Shiro, and I appreciate it, but, ultimately, I may be the death of you, to have asked you to do this foolish thing.”

            “No.” He stood and went to join her. “I already told you: we couldn’t have done any differently. Zarkon needs to be stopped, and if it’s just the seven of us to do it, so be it. But it’s not. We have allies, and we’re gaining more all the time.”

            “Because of Voltron.”

            He laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Because of you. Voltron is an incredibly powerful weapon, but it’s still just a weapon. You represent hope in the face of despair.”

            She shook her head. “I shouldn’t. I’m not worthy to be that symbol.”

            “You are. You may not believe it, but you are. And even if you weren’t, so what? We believe. In this mission, in Voltron, in ourselves.” He reached over with his right hand and turned her face towards him. “In you.”

            She felt tears well up in her eyes. “You shouldn’t. I’m just one person, and I didn’t survive because of skill or talent. I was chosen for a selfish reason.”

            “You survived because your father loved you and believed in you. Like we all do.”

            She blinked. “You… do?”

            He must have played back what he said because his face flamed crimson and he dropped his hands. “I… we… we believe in you. Yes.” He cleared his throat and looked out to space. “And we’re with you, Allura. Princess. I…”

            She reached out and took his hand, the one of flesh and blood, and squeezed it reassuringly. “Thank you, Shiro. I feel a little better.”

            “You’re welcome. Uh. Y-you… you said that’s why you _came_ here. Past tense. Why do you come here now?”

            “Oh, is it not obvious?” He shook his head. “I come here to see you.”

            His head whipped around at that, back to stare at her wide-eyed and mouth agape.

            “To spend time with you,” she said. “I enjoy it when we do. And I sleep better than when I was just torturing myself.”

            “Well, I… I’m glad.” He smiled and squeezed her hand. “Perhaps we should… make it a regular thing then?”

            “Once a movement?” she asked.

            He nodded. “I think… No, I _know_ I’d like that. I like spending time with you, too.”

            She felt her heart lift at the thought of knowing exactly when she’d be able to see him. They arranged it and walked together down the corridors until they had to break to go to their separate rooms.

 

            Sometimes she still had trouble getting to sleep, but most nights she slept well. And once a movement, she met up with Shiro on the obs deck – or, often, in the hallway on the way to the obs deck – and they would talk about their fears and worries, about their memories, about anything and everything they could think of.

            “What would you like to do when this is over?” she asked. “Assuming we win and we live.”

            “I hadn’t even thought that far ahead,” he admitted. “But, off the top of my head? I’d like to… to stay here, if I could.”

            “On the Castle?” she asked in surprise.

            He just nodded. “I don’t want to be separated from Black and I…” He reached out to take her hand as they sat together on the couch. “I’d miss you.”

            “You wouldn’t rather go back home?”

            “I.” He cleared his throat. “I think this is home now.” He squeezed her hand.

            She licked her lips. “I’d be honored if you stayed. And grateful. Because I’d miss you, too.”

            “What about you?” he asked.

            Visions swam to mind at the question, and she answered honestly. She seemed incapable of keeping secrets from Shiro now. “I’d want to keep doing this. With you. Our times together here are the closest thing to ‘home’ I’ve felt in a long time.”

            “Really?” His tone was soft and his gaze was deep as he looked at her.

            She nodded, leaning forward, wanting to fall into the warmth of his eyes. “Yes. I can be myself here with you, when no one else is around.”

            “I’m honored,” he murmured, voice throaty and rich. “And you’re beautiful.”

            The compliment snapped her back to reality and she sat up, leaning away from him. “I should… it’s getting late, and we should really…”

            “Oh! Uh…” He looked at least as red as she felt. “Yes, we should get to be-… sleep! Get to sleep.” He stood and she stood and they walked out of the room together.

            “And, really, thank you. As always.”

            “Of course, my pleasure, Princess.”

            “You know you don’t have to call me that. Not now, when it’s just the two of us.”

            “I do it to remind myself that you’re…”

            She stopped at the junction. “That I’m what?”

            “My superior.”

            “No. No, Shiro, I’m not.”

            “You absolutely are,” he quietly insisted.

            “I might outrank you, depending on the situation, but,” she laid a hand on his chest, right over his heart, “I have never met a man more suited to me, more my equal in every way, than you are.”

            He was silent, staring at her, and she could feel his heart racing.

            “Say my name, Shiro.”

            He licked his lips and it took him a moment to whisper it.

            “I barely heard that.”

            His right hand came up and tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. “Allura,” he said quietly.

            “That’s better,” she replied, just before she leaned up and kissed him.

 

            They talked. She rarely lulled him to sleep. They almost never sparred. And in between the talking, they kissed and held each other. He “blew raspberries” (as he put it) against her cheek and nibbled her ears and pressed her close to him. She tickled him and panted his first name hotly against his own (actually kind of cute when you got used to them) ears and encouraged his hands to explore her – albeit with her clothes still on.

            Sometimes, they’d still just talk for vargas on end, when they got going on a really interesting topic. But it was hard to find something more interesting than the sounds she could get Takashi to make, how quickly he could render her breathless, how deeply she wanted to learn everything she could about how to make him beam that sweet smile or smirk and growl against her skin.

            They should have gone their separate ways, but she pulled him away from the corridor he always used.

            “My room is that way,” he said.

            “ _My_ room is this way.” She paused and looked back over her shoulder. “And it has a bigger bed.”

            He had no further protests.

 

            Allura rose in the middle of the night, grabbing her robe and stealing out of her room to the observation deck. She let deep space surround her and she stared defiantly back at it. The void outside the Castle of Lions tempted her thoughts down a dark path, but she rejected it.

            Maybe this was destiny and maybe it wasn’t. But she was here now. Whether she had “chosen” to be here or not no longer mattered: she chose to continue. It still hurt, sometimes: the burden of so much suffering. It still bothered her to know that she had survived when so many others had not. But she didn’t have to face these things alone.

            She stood _against_ the darkness and the cold. The fire of her determination kept the icy void at bay. And then she went back to her room, curled up with Takashi once more, and fell asleep surrounded by the warmth of their love for each other.


End file.
